stepping stones
by Cee-face
Summary: Destiny sometimes has to travel a long road to ensure its deliverance. -Riku and Aqua; SPOILERS for the end of Birth by Sleep.-


The realm of darkness is a vast one. Maybe it's not quite as large as the realm of light, but it's hard to tell in a dimension where any indication of stable construction is obscured by a blackness that envelops everything like a void.

Riku is a little scared, if he can be completely honest. When he made a pact with Maleficent, he never thought he'd end up _this_ close to the darkness. He doesn't show his fear, though - that just makes the attraction that draws Heartless to him even stronger.

He's found his way to a very long path. The King is somewhere else; Riku is confident that he is not too far away, but Riku cannot see him nonetheless. There are no Heartless along this trail, for the time being. Only a very, very long stretch into an abyss in every single direction. He can't see very far ahead, but somehow, he knows the path is long. Maybe he's already walked it once. It's hard to say.

So he walks. And walks, and walks. And he continues walking until something stops him, in the most physical sense that it can. Something is in front of him that is not a rock or a crystal. It moves, but he doesn't draw his weapon - it doesn't smell like a monster. It smells like clear water and the thin air found at the peaks of mountains. There's the indescribable scent of magic, too, covering the rest of it like a film.

There's also light. He's not sure if it's his sense of smell or his developed sensitivity to feel out where a heart lies.

But most of all, it smells familiar, somehow, even if he's never been to a world of thin mountain air and crystalline waters.

"Who's there?" he finally asks. The thing - person - turns towards him. It's a woman. A woman from the deepest recesses of his memory, pulled out to finally stand before him as if to pass judgment on the path he has chosen for his journey.

She's quiet, staring at him with very, very blue eyes, fingers half-curled and resting against her collarbone. He sees a flicker of remembrance in her eyes, too.

Neither of them acknowledge the fuzzy memory that lies blurred between them, dulled by a decade of retrospect on the grim past that used to be such a bright future. Eventually, she smiles. She doesn't respond to his question. Even without a name, he knows the answer.

She approaches him slowly, her arm falling slack so that her fist hangs at her side. He keeps eye contact with her; he has to tilt his head back a little to do it. He's still got some growing to do. When they're within arm's reach and the memory of a rite passed on lies over them like a shroud, she holds out the hand that had previously been resting so near to her heart. With her palm facing up, she gently uncurls the digits that had been so carefully protecting the mystery item.

There's a charm in her hand of a yellow star-shaped fruit he's all too familiar with. Both leaves are still firmly attached, even though the effigy looks far too delicate to hold them up so well. The token is connected to a braided red cord that spills over the side of her hand, the clip at the opposite end dangling in the air below her fingers.

She finally speaks. "I haven't seen this in years," she says, with a warmth that somehow still seems too distant to touch. "I think that means I'm supposed to give it to you."

He furrows his eyebrows, giving her what he's sure seems like a very suspicious look. She just smiles. "I don't need it anymore," she clarifies.

So, he raises his hand and gingerly takes it out of her grasp, turning it in his palm and bringing it closer to his face so that he can have a better look. This has a familiar scent, as well, underneath the magic (because that's there, too - it lingers very thickly, in fact). It's one that he'd almost call a perfume, and he'd recognize it anywhere in all of the worlds.

As if on cue with the connection, the charm begins to glow, and he holds it a little farther away from himself. He watches as it dissolves into clusters of golden light, which then begin to swirl and take a new shape, multiplying in number until he can feel a solid weight in his hand that he has to wrap his fingers around to make sure it doesn't fall.

The light dissipates, leaving in its place something else that has undeniable familiarity - the weapon that arguably started all this. It's not the shape he's most familiar with. This one hardly even looks like a key. It's mostly gold, with ocean waves at one end and flowers at the other. The charm that had previously been in his hand now clings to the bottom of the guard, with a kind of hold that makes Riku think it must be almost like returning home for the small ornament.

When he looks up, the woman is looking at the blade. She had probably been watching for the entirety of the process. There's a look of faraway pride on her countenance, and melancholy in her following words. "I don't think it was ever meant for me," she begins. "I think I was just holding it until someone else was ready." She turns that unreachable smile on him. "Do you know who it belongs to?"

It is another question that they both know the answer to. Riku decides he'll say something anyways. "Yeah, I think so."

She looks proud again. "Will you make sure it gets to them?"

"I can do that," he replies. He finds dismissing the blade as easy as sending away his own weapon, but it leaves a different feeling in its wake; it's less like the temporary sendoff of a humble servant and more like sending well wishes to someone who has done you a favor. Suddenly, he finds himself worried for this woman's fate. "Where are you going?"

She turns her head to the nonexistent sky, her hand coming to lie at her collarbone once more. He can't help but think that she must be holding some other imaginary token in her hand this time, one that was actually meant for her. "I'll know when I get there," responds the memory-woman cryptically, gentle assurance in her voice. Despite the literal meaning of what she has said, Riku thinks her journey has already been made, her destination determined. All that is left to do is close the distance to it.

She looks at him again. "You should go. You still have a lot to do," she encourages. And it's true. Despite standing on the same pathway, they are worlds apart. Riku's destination is still far off, with many trials lying in wait before it. He doesn't even know if it's where he's truly meant to be. It seems less like a final goal than it does a stepping stone.

"You'll be fine here?" questions the boy. He's sure she doesn't need protecting. It just seems wrong not to ask.

Her expression is one of gratitude. "I will." Her other hand rises to join the first over her heart. "Thank you." She says volumes in her thanks, for much more than Riku's simple courtesy.

"Alright," he concedes, moving past her. He turns to raise his hand in farewell. "See you around, then." There's little chance that they'll find each other again in this realm, but they've met twice now, and there's no such thing as coincidences.

From her small laugh, she's aware of this fact. "We'll see each other again," affirms the elder. "Good luck."

He nods and completes his turn, fully intending to pick up where he left off. It's only a few steps before he can neither sense nor smell her presence, and a glance over his shoulder reveals that she is out of sight, as well.

He's sure that if he were to summon the Keyblade, though, it would all be right there under the surface. It may not have belonged to the memory-woman of clear water, mountain air, and a world long destroyed...

But to say she wasn't meant to have it just didn't seem quite right either.

It can take a lot of stepping stones to reach a final goal, sometimes.

(He knows; he's pretty sure he's one of them now.)

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**a little, not-necessarily-headcanon theory i came up with on how Riku got his hands on the Destiny's Embrace Keyblade that he gives to Kairi in KH2. i think, if i can be vague, Aqua's spell on Kairi went both ways, just a little. (: this takes place after the conclusion of KH1. it is a little surreal at times, as all of my KH works seem to be lately. whoops. oh well. i hope you guys enjoyed!


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